jallerton

Perhaps the captains haven't heard of Law 82C, but in your example there is a knowledgeable David at the other table who at the end of the set presumably tells the captains about Law 82C as well as why their original ruling was illegal.

I find this surprising. Surely the two captains are acting jointly as TD. If the two captains agree on a ruling which transpires to have been illegal, why should this ruling not be rectified under Law 82C?

One of my teammates had this bidding problem at the table and he chose to double 4♦, which was not a success. Another teammate criticised the double, saying that it was obvious to pass as RHO was clearly short in clubs and was worried about 3NT making, but that it wouldn't make any sense for RHO to compete to 4♦ at the vulnerabilty unless that contract was close to making. I suggested that following that logic it might be right to compete to 4NT, as RHO might be reluctant to double that as he would still be worried about the club suit, whilst LHO would not know enough to double even if he held a club stop. Meanwhile 4NT would have an outside chance of making. The full hand was: [hv=pc=n&s=shj3daq98643cq842&w=skt764ha875d2ca93&n=saqj852hk9642d75c&e=s93hqtdkjtckjt765&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=3ddp3npp4ddppp&p=d2d5dkda]399|300[/hv] I was North at the other table. Thinking that I might want a spade lead, I bid 3♠ on the first round. East now bid 4♣ which drifted two off.

It's an interesting idea to agree that forcing passes never apply at this vulnerability. However, your other point is clearly correct. There's no reason to suppose that we would have bid above 1NT in an uncontested auction, so why should it necessarily be our hand? East/West were under a lot of pressure after the pre-empt. 3NT may have been the best call available to East on the previous round, but that does not necessarily mean that East expected to make it! Drifting a couple off in 3NT, even if doubled, scores better than 3♦x making.

I like to play 2NT as showing an unspecified mini-splinter here, implying reasonable playing strength but not enough high card strength for Drury . Much of the time, Opener will just sign off in 3♠ or 4♠, but if he wants to know the location of the shortage he can ask with step 1. I recently played with a partner who wanted to play passed hand responses of 2NT/3m to 1 of a major as natural, invitational (he has a very sound style of 1-level opening bids). I wanted a way to be able to bid these distributional 4-card raises, so we agreed to play the raise to 3 of a major as showing that hand type (again step 1 asks for shortage).

When this occurred at the table, the opponents were a pair of Welsh internationals.

[hv=pc=n&e=s93hqtdkjtckjt765&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=3ddp3npp4d]133|200[/hv] You are East. IMPs, favourable vulnerability. What do you do now?

True, but clubs is the only suit where we have a potential stopper. The anti-ducking lead of a low heart has more attraction if we have more likelihood of gaining the lead. Here we are so weak that partner is more likely to be the one with the entry. Also, as I hinted earlier, I don't consider a small singleton heart in dummy to be so likely given Dummy's bidding. Dummy could have clubs or spades in a forcing manner after 2♦-dbl-Pass, so the Dummy's Pass of 2♦x tends to suggest either a balanced hand or length in diamonds. With 4- or 5-card diamond support and a low singleton heart, would Dummy elect to play in 3NT?

We know from partner's opening bid that the opponents have 25-29HCP between them and none of their suits seem to be breaking badly, so going passive is unlikely to beat the contract: we probably need to be able to take several heart tricks. Not leading a heart seems to be playing for a very particular layout, something like ♥Kx opposite ♥xx when a heart lead would give declarer his ninth trick. A far more likely is that we just knock out declarer's heart stop and hope partner gets in before declarer has 9 tricks. So is it to be a low heart or the ace? A low heart might gain when declarer has a 3-card holding with two honours in hand opposite a low singleton in dummy. It might be worth asking the opponents about their methods, but if that's the layout, LHO might have done something other than a take-out double (e.g. bid a new suit or cue bid to show a 3-suiter) and/or RHO might have bid 2NT (if available as natural) over the double. ♥A will gain when dummy has a singleton K or Q and declarer has ♥Kxx or Qxx in hand (on a low heart lead, declarer knows to block the suit on the next round). If the opposing hearts are 2-2 then there is no theoretical difference between a low heart and the ace (unless we need to keep communications to defend against a strip squeeze ending, which is probably a bit of an obscure consideration). However, if declarer's heart holding is Qx opposite Jx in dummy, might partner not be tempted to put in the ♥8 at trick 1 if we lead ♥2? If he does, is that our fault or his? I'm leading the ace of hearts.

Actually, the identity of the OP is a strong indication that the hand was constructed. Note the purity of the deal (North/South have 8 simple tricks in NT with no realistic chance of a 9th) and the natural 2NT response to 1NT which is extremely rarely played these days.

I bid 3♥. With such a good suit (playable opposite a void!), I need to tell partner the good news. The great thing about playing Precision is that partner won't be expecting a 16-count for bids like this. If I pass then bid 3♥ on the next round partner should expect a worse suit. To some extent the meanings of 4♣/♦ now depend on what types of hand you include within double of 1♠. The way I play, if partner's club suit is good enough to introduce at the 4-level to fight against my voluntarily rebid major suit, he would have bid it on the first round (or possibly passed with a weak hand and a very long suit). With 6-5 in the minors and reasonable values he would also normally start by bidding one of them first. Therefore 4♣/♦ has to agree hearts in some manner. Whether that be a source of tricks or just a cue bid is a matter of partnership style. If you play Kickback, you need concrete agreements as to when it applies (even the occasional misunderstading figures to lose than the theoretical gain from playing such a method). Theoretically, I think 4♠ ought to be Kickback and 4NT becomes a substitute spade cue bid (or whatever 4♠ would mean if Kickback did not apply).

Why on earth not? It's not as if you are short of bids in this sequence and it seems unlikely that reserving bids to be slam tries by a passed hand opposite a 14-16 NT is going to be a winning strategy.

Your recommendation works well when hands turn up which have values, fewer than 4 spades and unsuitable for a raise, but there are other hands where it works better to distinguish between exactly 4 spades & 5+ spades. For example, if the next hand jump raises in hearts, it can be very useful for Opener to know how many spades partner has. I play both treatments, but I'm not sure which is better overall.

I think this is a good summary which applies to many MI cases. Often a non-offender might have found the winning call or play despite the explanation. Sometimes analysis shows that a non-offender should have winning the winning call or play despite the explanation. Sometimes (as here) it should have been totally obvious to the defender that the explanations he (thought he) had received did not make any sense. Have the lawmakers given any guidance as to when a TD should use solution 1, when he should use solution 2, and when he should use solution 3?

It was considered fairly obvious that "without pause for thought" meant "without pause for thought". However, the powers that be at the WBFLC decided that they wanted the phrase to mean something else which is the reason for the official "interpretation" with regard to Law 25A. Robin raises a good point: do we assume that if the 2007 Laws had been properly drafted to reflect the WBFLC's intentions, Law 25A would have read "...without pause for thought from the moment the player realises his error" or did the people responsible for the 2007 Laws really believe that "without pause for thought" means the same as "without pause for thought from the moment the player realises his error"? If the latter, then presumably the WBFLC would expect a similar "interpretation" to apply to Law 45C4. If the former, then perhaps not. In Robin's examples, one would normally expect declarer to notice that dummy had put his hand on the "wrong" card before he had had the opportunity to see the next player's card, or to play his own, but I suppose sometimes people play cards too quickly without watching properly which card dummy has put his hands on.

I agree with this; your last sentence is particularly pertinent. The sequence of ['stop', hesitation, bid] strongly suggests that the player thought it was obvious to make a jump bid, but was unsure which jump bid to make. If anyone wants to argue that "strongly suggests" does not necessarily imply "demonstrably suggested", they should consider that: 1. The wording within Law 16 is in fact "could demonstrably have been suggested". 2. The partner is also obliged to comply with Law 73C, so must carefully avoid taking any advantage from the UI arising from the timing of 'stop' card. 3. The use of the 'stop' card in this way is a breach of Law 73B1 (illegal communication between partners). The TD should warn the player and be prepared to issue a procedural penalty for any repeat offence.

How exactly do you recommend East shows evidence of "no agreement", Sven? If he hands the TD a blank piece of paper and says "here are our agreementa about the meaning of Responder's rebids after a 2♣ Opener", is this sufficient evidence for you as TD? Alternatively, if he hands his 66-page system file to the TD and says "this sequence is not mentioned", would you as TD read through all 66 pages to check this assertion?

You seem to have conveniently ignored the main finding of Frances's poll: So 16 out of 17 thought that either Opener's Pass was forcing or else Responder's hand was too strong to pass the hand out. As you point correctly point out, you and your partner had no specific agreement about the meaning of 1♠-dbl-1NT-P-3♣. When guessing the meaning of an undiscussed bid, people usually consider how the bid might generally be played. [if I had been on the AC, I would have asked North/South the meaning of 1♠-P-1NT-P-3♣ in their methods.] In your own poll there was only one vote for a jump to 3♣ on that hand (compared with 17 votes for jumping to 3♣ on hands at least a working queen stronger). That seems a fair indication of what you could reasonably expect partner to hold based on the authorised auction. The fact that you have apparently found out a week later that your partner "would have bid 3♣" on such a weak hand over a natural 1NT is not really relevant: at the time you could not have known that. This leads to a point which even dcrc2 may find instructive, if he is still reading our "should be private" discussions. Consider this scenario: A player has UI, telling him that partner has not interpreted his bid as the player had intended. The partner now makes a bid which is undiscussed in the authorised auction, but must logically have either meaning A or meaning B. In the absence of UI, the player would have been able to guess whether meaning A or meaning B had been intended and choose his subsequent auction accordingly. However, because the player has UI, in order to "carefully avoid taking any advantage" of the UI, he must assume whichever of meaning A and meaning B is more likely to make the earlier misunderstanding cause the auction to get out of hand. In the present case, it is very convenient for South to assume a weaker meaning for 3♣ because that gives him an excuse to avoid getting to a silly contract. South knows that if he assumes the (normal) stronger meaning for 3♣ and has to keep the auction open, there is likely to be ambiguity about the meaning of subsequent bids, becase of the partners being on different wavelengths from the earlier auction.

I posted the hand but I was not a participant at the table, nor was I consulted by the TD about the ruling, nor was I on the AC. My reasons for posting the hand were: 1. Another thread had been started in which one of the players was criticising the AC in this case. Her partner joined in and quoted the AC's written comments from the appeal form. But there was something rather important missing, namely the hand and the facts of the case. As I happened to have been told these by West (and assuming he had got the auction and timing of the alert correctly, it did not seem to me that he could have distorted the facts in any way) I thought that other forum readers might like to see the hand so they could judge for themselves. 2. Before hearing the AC's verdict, West also commented to me that he was seriously impressed with the AC for having taken over 45 minutes of their time hearing and considering the case. I told him his deposit must be safe (!), but the fact that the AC took so long implies that (at least in the AC's opinion) the ruling is worth discussing and not clear cut. Would you not agree that it's better to have this type of appeals case than completely obvious ones on this forum? The topic title was my attempt at irony, inspired by the unfortunate topic title given to that other thread.

It's nothing like a Michaels Cue Bid. 3♣ was forcing to game, so there's no need for her to double to show extra values. Opener's Pass over 3♥ is 100% forcing. For you to continue to argue that passing out 3♥ is the correct call, or even a logical alternative, is quite incredible. He who claims that partner has denied 6 spades in the authorised auction is not stopping to think. With six spades, partner can make a forcing pass to see whether he wishes to defend 3♥x, failing which he can be relied upon to bid 3♠ on a doubleton, having denied 3-card support earlier in the auction. No, the Law says you must carefully avoid taking any advantage of unauthorised information from partner and must not select a demonstrably suggested logical alternative. The Lamfordian poll, where you give people a bidding problem, then reject all of the answers from people who don't agree with you, is not a fair way of assessing logical alternatives.

There's probably not a lot of point in playing transfers if you are going to make the same rebid as you would have done over a 2♣ response, but never mind. There was nothing offensive intended about my opinion. The Orange Book section on fielded misbids and psyches explains: "The TD will judge actions objectively by the standards of a player’s peers; that is to say intent will not be taken into account." No-one is suggesting that you attempted to field a misbid. People form their own opinions based on the cards held and the calls made on those cards. I suppose all opinions on judgement rulings could be regarded as offensive to someone: even a "no infraction" ruling might be interpreted as "offensive" by the player who asked for the ruling!

I would prefer to defend 3♥x with that hand. Indeed this is true of many of the hands where one might to bid a natural 3NT. The only hand type I can think of where a natural 3NT is particularly useful is when the partner of the doubler has a single heart stop and a decent 6-card minor. Even then it might be right to play in the minor. Hands suitable for the "scramble" meaning are quite a lot more frequent, I would have thought. Clearly though if you wish to play this method you need unambiguous agreements as to when "scramble" 3NT might apply!

I was just saying that a TD should always consider the fielded misbid regulations in a "forgotten the system" case. Personally, I consider 3♣ to be a serious underbid (as I think was mentioned in one of the other threads, 3♣ is more like a single raise, as 2♣ is just a transfer completion which could be a 5=4=3=1 12-count for example). I would clasify North's 3♣ as "amber" (so no adjustment).

Probably because she has an 11-count with 5-card club support when according to a "strong Canadian player" her previous auction is consistent with "14-15 with 3 clubs or 16-17 with 2 clubs" Very wise. When you are in a hole, stop digging, as they say.

Certainly an AC should make use of any valid poll performed by the TD. Here though it seems that something has gone seriously wrong with the poll. Where did the TD find these people who apparently opted to defend 3♥undoubled non-vulnerable when partner had forced to game from strength? More likely, I suspect, the TD gave them a wrong auction or told the people asked about about the unauthorised information when conducting the poll. Judging from his comments, the Chief TD came to the same conclusion. When the West player first told me and a couple of other people I was with about the hand, it was as a bidding problem from South's point of view and we had no idea that the hand was the subject of a TD ruling and ongoing appeal. All three of us bid 3♠, with double being mentioned as a vague possibility. There are various possible legal auctions. See Trinidad's and Gnasher's examples. North has given in to 3♥ in the sense that she has raised clubs to what she deeems to be an appropriate level and has then passed. However, that information is unauthorised to South. South has to act on the basis of the authorised auction from his point of view; in this case that partner has shown a game force with 5+♠ and 4+♣ and has then made a forcing pass over 3♥. By the way, North's bidding at the table is not completely irrelevant. If the TD considers her actions to constitute a "red fielded misbid" then an artificial score adjustment to +/-3IMPs (if this scores better for the non-offending side than the UI-adjusted weighting) might be indicated under EBU rules.